poll Bigger Classic: We Belong Together vs Shallow

[stevyy]

4 hours ago, SharonStone said:

Mariah was the OG of chart manipulation since back in the day. She invented in a sense the whole discount and remixes tactics to go #1 back then, that are being used even today.

Maybe that’s why 80% of her #1s are completely forgotten or unknown to this day.

Shallow is such a global phenomenon and its recurrent stats say it all 

Her 19 #1's by sales and airplay peaks:

 

1990 - #1 sales - #1 airplay ---------------- 51 million streams - Vision of Love

1990 - #1 sales - #1 airplay ---------------- 33 million streams - Love Takes Time

1991 - #2 sales - #1 airplay ---------------- 18 million streams - Someday

1991 - #3 sales - #4 airplay ---------------- 14 million streams - I Don't Wanna Cry

1991 - #10 sales - #1 airplay --------------- 86 million streams - Emotions

1992 - #3 sales - #1 airplay ---------------- 74 million streams - I'll Be There

1993 - #2 sales - #1 airplay ---------------- 50 million streams - Dreamlover

1993 - #2 sales - #1 airplay --------------- 225 million streams - Hero

1995 - #1 sales - #1 airplay --------------- 272 million streams - Fantasy

1995 - #1 sales - #1 airplay --------------- 154 million streams - One Sweet Day

1996 - #1 sales - #2 airplay --------------- 312 million streams - Always be my Baby

1997 - #1 sales - #11 airplay --------------- 67 million streams - Honey

1998 - #1 sales - #15 airplay --------------- 95 million streams - My All

1999 - #1 sales - #8 airplay --------------- 102 million streams - Heartbreaker

2000 - #1 sales - #15 airplay -------------- 45 million streams - Thank God I Found You

2005 - #2 digital - #16 physical - #1 airplay - 452 million streams - We Belong Together

2005 - #1 digital - -------------- #1 airplay - 40 million streams - Don't Forget About Us

2008 - #1 digital - #2 physical - #2 airplay - 150 million streams - Touch my Body

2019 - #1 digital - #6 physical - #11 airplay - #1 streaming - 1,443 million streams - All I want for Christmas Is You

 

Further top 10s:

1992 - #8 sales - #2 airplay - #2 H100 - 16 million streams - Can't Let Go

1992 - #18 sales - #2 airplay - #5 H100 - 10 million streams - Make It Happen

1994 - #3 sales - #2 airplay - #3 H100 - 202 million streams - Without You

1994 - #2 sales - #5 airplay - #2 H100 - 83 million streams - Endless Love

1999 - #3 sales - #20 airplay - #4 H100 - 26 million streams - I Still Believe

2001 - #1 sales - #50 airplay - #2 H100 - 2 million streams - Loverboy (Original)

2003 - no sales - #3 airplay - #3 H100 - 270 million streams - I Know what you Want

2005 - #6 digital - #1 airplay - #2 H100 - 93 million streams - Shake It Off

2009 - #6 digital - #1 physical - #6 airplay - #7 H100 - 248 million streams - Obsessed

 

5 #1's above 200 million.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Original and non-payola act, Madonna, as reference:

 

#1's ranked by spotify streams. 

 

358 million - Like a Prayer ------------------ 1,443 million - AIWFC

265 million - Like a Virgin ------------------- 452 million - WBT

208 million - Vogue ------------------------- 312 million - ABMB

108 million - Papa Don't Preach ------------- 272 million - Fantasy

101 million - Crazy For You ------------------ 225 million - Hero

65 million - Music --------------------------- 154 million - One Sweet Day

51 million - Live To Tell ---------------------- 150 million - Touch my Body

48 million - Take a Bow --------------------- 102 million - Heartbreaker

45 million - Open your Heart ---------------- 95 million - My All

27 million - Who's That Girl -----------------  86 million - Emotions

21 million - Justify my Love ------------------ 74 million - I'll Be There

10 million - This Used to be my Playground -- 67 million - Honey

 

Top 10's for both ranked:

 

381 million - Material Girl ------------------------ 1,443 million - AIWFCIY

358 million - Like a Prayer ----------------------- 452 million - We Belong Together

335 million - Hung Up --------------------------- 312 million - Always be my Baby

280 million - La Isla Bonita ----------------------- 272 million - Fantasy

265 million - Like a Virgin ------------------------ 270 million - I know what you Want

262 million - 4 Minutes -------------------------- 248 million - Obsessed

208 million - Vogue ------------------------------ 225 million - Hero

108 million - Papa Don't Preach ------------------ 202 million - Without You

101 million - Crazy For You ----------------------- 154 million - One Sweet Day

100 million - Frozen ------------------------------ 150 million - Touch my Body

65 million - Music -------------------------------- 102 million - Heartbreaker

57 million - Ray of Light -------------------------- 95 million - My All

52 million - Express Youself ---------------------- 93 million - Shake It Off

51 million - Live to Tell ---------------------------- 86 million - Emotions

48 million - Take a Bow --------------------------- 83 million - Endless Love

45 million - Open your Heart ---------------------- 74 million - I'll Be There

39 million - Lucky Star ---------------------------- 67 million - Honey

39 million - True Blue ----------------------------- 51 million - Vision of Love

36 million - Die Another Day ---------------------- 50 million - Dreamlover

33 million - Don't Tell Me -------------------------- 45 million - Thank God I Found You

33 million - Give me all your Lovin' ----------------- 40 million - Don'T forget about us

29 million - Cherish -------------------------------- 33 million - Love Takes Time

27 million - Who's That Girl ------------------------ 26 million - I Still Believe

25 million - Don't Cry for me Argentina ------------ 18 million - Someday

24 million - Secret --------------------------------- 16 million - Can't Let Go

23 million - Dress you Up -------------------------- 14 million - I Don't Wanna Cry

21 million - Justify my Love -------------------------10 million - Make It Happen

14 million - Erotica ----------------------------------2 million - Loverbpoy

14 million - I'll Remember

12 million - You'll See

10 million - This Used to be my Playground

10 million - Deeper and Deeper

9 million - Angel

6 million - Causing a Commotion

3 million - Hanky Panky

2 million - Rescue Me

2 million - Keep It Together

 

 

Both have more recent songs, released in the streaming era, which were not Top 10 hits, or even H100 entries, but have higher streams than their actual Top 10 hits which shows just how difficult it is for huge non-streaming catalogues, to amass streaming totals. The bigger the catalogue the more spread out the streams among those songs. And I do not think anyone would say that the majority of Madonna's music is forgotten, however, I see a lot of haters spewing that in regards to Mariah's music which is just stupid. 

[GreatestLoveofAll]

this is literally the most random comparison.

[Eternium]

On 4/6/2023 at 6:37 PM, R. Ramirez said:

Mariah dropped We Belong Together in a time it was easy to manipulate songs with radio PAYOLA, like all her forgotten and fraudulent singles from the 90s. 

Payola was defunded and removed for radio in 2005, sis. I know the Little Monsters have no facts so they rely on rewriting history, but there was a famous probe in payola and that’s what got pop music back to charting on the Hot 100 and allowed JIVE artists to make a comeback. Ironically, removing Sony’s payola abilities is what allowed Mariah to do well on radio again after Sony famously lobbied against her.

 

Meanwhile, Spotify announced that they made payola legal on their platform in 2020 and have been selling it to all major labels. Every artist who magically had their streams explode in the year 2020 is most likely a payola plant.

 

Anyway:

We Belong Together - 5,220,000 [4/29/17]

Shallow - 3,310,000 [12/22/20]

 

Obviously anyone with a brain is going to realize that it’ll take Shallow years to catch up to a song that was massively popular for 14 years before it came out.

On 4/6/2023 at 4:21 PM, NewStanner said:

 

It's WBT duh, but Shallow is a classic too

 

At least both are bigger than Toxic

And then you woke up:

 

Toxic - 8,560,000 [4/28/19]

Shallow - 3,310,000 [12/22/20]

 

Maybe worry about Shallow competing with the hits of its time like Dance Monkey, Bad Guy, Lovely, Senorita, Levitating, Don’t Start Now, Havana, Flowers, etc. instead of coming for certified hits from decades ago that have had years to move significantly more units  

[www]

7 hours ago, SharonStone said:

Mariah was the OG of chart manipulation since back in the day. She invented in a sense the whole discount and remixes tactics to go #1 back then, that are being used even today.

Maybe that’s why 80% of her #1s are completely forgotten or unknown to this day.

Shallow is such a global phenomenon and its recurrent stats say it all 

thats simply not true.

in addiion to having so many number ones, mariah was selling albums.

she is the biggest selling artist in the 90s. no one touches her in album sales. people were willing to pay USD20 to actually pourchase her albums.

Her no 1 Singles are just icing on the cake! Also, she misseh a fe wnumber ones on purpose - for example Cant let go hit no2 and it had limited number of copies available (because the lable was focusing on albums sales), otherwise it would have likely gone to no1.

 

Funny how people want to discredit mariah's no1s yet forget that she was actually selling albums as well, better than anyone else. Ya'll forget that the whole purpose of having a single is to promote an album...very few artists have been able to sell albums based on their singles alone. 

 

 

The only manipulation was with Loverboy - discounting the price.

[stevyy]

2 hours ago, www said:

thats simply not true.

in addiion to having so many number ones, mariah was selling albums.

she is the biggest selling artist in the 90s. no one touches her in album sales. people were willing to pay USD20 to actually pourchase her albums.

Her no 1 Singles are just icing on the cake! Also, she misseh a fe wnumber ones on purpose - for example Cant let go hit no2 and it had limited number of copies available (because the lable was focusing on albums sales), otherwise it would have likely gone to no1.

 

Funny how people want to discredit mariah's no1s yet forget that she was actually selling albums as well, better than anyone else. Ya'll forget that the whole purpose of having a single is to promote an album...very few artists have been able to sell albums based on their singles alone. 

 

 

The only manipulation was with Loverboy - discounting the price.

right. 15 #1's were collected with these releases:

 

RIAA certified:

 

1990 - 9xP - Debut

1991 - 4xP - Emotions

1992 - 4xP - Unplugged

1993 - Diamond - Music Box

1994 - 8xP - Merry Christmas

1995 - 11xP - Daydream

1997 - 5xP - Butterfly

1998 - 6xP - #1's

1999 - 3xP - Rainbow

= 60 million albums certified for the 1990s where the 15 #1's came from. 

 

People act like she was stuck at platinum or double platinum with magical #1's attached to those short-lived flop eras. In pure sales alone Music Box almost sold as much outside the US (15,5 million copies) as The Fame did globally. I know different era... etc... that's true. But still. 

 

And the album where WBT came from is 7xP in the US as well. Actually, Mariah has 11 multi-platinum releases in the US. And she remains untouchable as Soundscan's (1991-present) biggest selling female albums artist in the US, approaching 60 million pure sales, not sps. 

[stevyy]

2 hours ago, www said:

 

 

 

The only manipulation was with Loverboy - discounting the price.

IN 2001 the physical single was dead. Sony discounted their artists singles as well as Virgin, Warner and Universal. Loverboy still became the best selling physical single in the US of 2001, selling almost 600,000 copies. For that alone it deserved its #2 peak on the H100. It sold almost 200,000 singles in the first week alone. Bootylicious by DC which also got the reduction price treatment from Sony sold less, but ended up at #1 bc of bigger airplay. 

 

The real manipulation began with these clear channel deals in the late 2000s. Suddenly, songs debuted with 40 million audience impressions on day 1 which was unheard of before. 

 

Flash forward to the 2020s... we are now seeing acts discounting their digital singles, selling them on their websites to purchasing factories, releasing a new remix every week to boost streaming and debuting with 200-300 million playlist reach. 

 

Honestly, I think that if these acts don't go to #1 with these tactics then something is seriously wrong with their fanbase. 

 

Our old divas get like 20 million playlist reach, 0 radio support and debut with 3,000 digital sales. Artists of a certain age and without the teen support will never again chart anywhere. 

[VioletsandRoses]

14 hours ago, stevyy said:

TEOM has pure soundscan sales of 6,086,183 (July, 2018). 

Last year, it was re-certified 7xP (7 million).

That’s what I said, 6.1 million 

6 hours ago, Aristotle said:

The sales market in 2006 and 2005 was not that different from 2009 and 2010. I was not implying that TEOM was bigger than TF+M in US (or even less WW) I was just making a point that this single WBT brought to it's album more sales than TF+M, which is impressive.

 

You guys are comparing streaming units which in most cases come mostly from singles and carry the whole album. When you count in pure album sales WBT wins overall.

 

 

The album market fell nearly in half, from 619m in 2005 to 374 million in 2008 

TFM was selling for 3 years straight #8, #4 and #56 compared to #4 and #11. They both had rerelease too. That’s not including the EP which also sold another 1.7 million. Not including streaming either

 

[VioletsandRoses]

7 hours ago, Intuition said:

You can't really compare the very beginning of the digital era with the peak of the digital era. 

Both peaked at #4 on the year-end charts, so they were about even in the States and obviously The Fame was way bigger WW (esp. Europe). 

Was the peak of iTunes really 2009? I’m sure 2012 was the peak. 2009 was when started selling good but not like in 2011/12

[CBC]

obvious gaga setup, at least make a little more effort next time 

[Cryptique]

WBT is extremely LOCAL

 

therefore, SHALLOW 

[Chris]

We Belong Together was #1 for over 10 weeks.

 

[Forever Winter]

4 hours ago, CBC said:

obvious gaga setup, at least make a little more effort next time 

But I was told WBT was local so there's no way it could be bigger than Shallow

[thetea]

12 hours ago, iconicyayo said:

WBT is extremely local  

you're really gonna say this when the charts and worldwide sales were posted?

 

OT: shallow is the bigger single worldwide currently.

[A.R.L]

Shallow has a movie and an oscar nomination/award behind it thanks to bradley, which is why shallow feels like the bigger song, but even with all that, it won't be bigger than some other Mariah’s classics like say without you. Give the song shallow a few more years and it will be forgotten.

 

However, the better song is clearly we belong together. 

 

Edited April 9, 2023 by A.R.L

[getfree2017]

Omg the delusional Swifties…

[Otter]

Not everything needs to be compared 

 

 

Both classics released in completely different music, consumption and digital landscapes, with slightly different demographic appeal.

 

Edited April 9, 2023 by Otter

[Otter]

Also their chart ascents are completely different, comparing peak sales is pointless. 

[www]

10 hours ago, stevyy said:

IN 2001 the physical single was dead. Sony discounted their artists singles as well as Virgin, Warner and Universal. Loverboy still became the best selling physical single in the US of 2001, selling almost 600,000 copies. For that alone it deserved its #2 peak on the H100. It sold almost 200,000 singles in the first week alone. Bootylicious by DC which also got the reduction price treatment from Sony sold less, but ended up at #1 bc of bigger airplay. 

 

The real manipulation began with these clear channel deals in the late 2000s. Suddenly, songs debuted with 40 million audience impressions on day 1 which was unheard of before. 

 

Flash forward to the 2020s... we are now seeing acts discounting their digital singles, selling them on their websites to purchasing factories, releasing a new remix every week to boost streaming and debuting with 200-300 million playlist reach. 

 

Honestly, I think that if these acts don't go to #1 with these tactics then something is seriously wrong with their fanbase. 

 

Our old divas get like 20 million playlist reach, 0 radio support and debut with 3,000 digital sales. Artists of a certain age and without the teen support will never again chart anywhere. 

Yeah thanks. Basically with Loverboy she did not do anything that was not a standard back then (i.e. discounts).

 

I think lots of user here are too young and have no knowledge of how charts functioned 10+ years ago.

 

Regarding WBT, it is impressive what the song did for the album -TEOM was no 1 biggest seller of the year. She had sales

 

 

 

[momal]

WBT. Shallow is not a classic, it's been barely 5 years since it was released and I've never heard the song in full so far tbh.

[CBC]

7 hours ago, Taeyong said:

But I was told WBT was local so there's no way it could be bigger than Shallow

probably true given the recency bias but WBT is iconic after all these years and I've seen gen zers bopping unlike shallow 

[Margaux]

shallow for all. wbt is so corny. mariah has written the most corny lyrics known to man. 

[Margaux]

12 hours ago, CBC said:

obvious gaga setup, at least make a little more effort next time 

not really a set up when gaga won 2 vs 1 accdg to poll

[Hot Volcano]

3 hours ago, momal said:

WBT. Shallow is not a classic, it's been barely 5 years since it was released and I've never heard the song in full so far tbh.

What

 

Maybe try going outside more? I mean, if you haven't heard a song that has over 6 billion streams combined on all streaming platforms and is still played a lot on the radio WW, then who is to blame?

[perfillusion]

6 hours ago, Otter said:

Also their chart ascents are completely different, comparing peak sales is pointless. 

Completely agree with you, these two songs have nothing in common. But ATRL Britney stans are obsessed with comparing Gaga/her songs to every other song, popstar, and now even to movie stars. 
 

 

[SharonStone]

3 minutes ago, perfillusion said:

Completely agree with you, these two songs have nothing in common. But ATRL Britney stans are obsessed with comparing Gaga/her songs to every other song, popstar, and now even to movie stars. 
 

 

This. I noticed its always the Britney stans making these Gaga comparison threads trying to set her up against everyone. Yesterday it was Margot Robbie. Today it's Mariah…